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MS Youth-Culture App Gets Gushy Advance Reviews
geo writes "Newsweek first reported this new Microsoft beta, threedegrees. The surprise is, Steven Levy, well-known fan of the Macintosh (and unfan of Microsoft) wrote something almost entirely positive. So did CNET news.com.com.com.com.com. Is it possible that something good is coming out of Redmond?"
No the first twenty replies would have gone along the lines of "KDE? Why would you use that Gnome is way better" "No its not" "Yes it is" "Well you suck" and so on and so on.
Never underestimate the geek ability to concentrate on the minute at the expense of the bigger issue.
"Is it possible that something good is coming out of Redmond?"
Is it possible that a Slashdot editor could take submissions with at least some degree of subjectivity? Whether threedegrees is good or not, this sort of opinion in the post itself surely taints the comments.
Free iPods - now in the UK!
The fact that is is similar to IRC should tell you (and any person who writes apps for Linux) something.
The user interface and user experience is key. Yes, this technology is like IRC. But, it probably doesn't have all of the cruft and baggage of IRC. No obscure server names to remember, no Ops, kicks, bots, channel storms, etc... Easier setup and connect, etc... The list of IRC woes is long. IRC was (is) a medium made by geeks for geeks. It's not an easy thing to understand and it's learning curve is practically vertical. The problems are a shame too, as the underlying concept of communication channels/rooms is valid and useful.
Dynamix did a lot to clean up IRC and make it easy to understand in their Tribes2 pre-game UI. 3deg of Separation sounds like an excellent attempt by Microsoft to make IRC style communications go mainstream.
Anyone who's ever written an IRC client should sit back and ask themselves, "Why wasn't I concerned with making IRC better instead of just making yet another IRC client?"